Ding dong, Statists' Union calling... 'Health reform - right the wrongs!'

Insurance companies that seem to serve almost singly as investment companies rather than a health care coverage company certainly tick me off. But what's better is what I would like to see, not what's easily likely to be MUCH WORSE. 


Name one operation of the government that saves any money for anyone, except in the coffers of those earning money from the operation. We taxpayers bought GM: what did you get out of that? I got nothing, thanks.


Government, as I've heard said quite a few times recently, is not in the business of giving up money: it is in the business of taking it. Medicare is struggling, the Post Office is struggling, Democrats can't even get along with themselves, the CRA program killed the fair market in real estate -- fair to people who actually could pay a mortgage, I mean! -- crooked dealings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac embarrassed even legitimate criminals, but we should count on government to do right by us in health care? 


Judging from the email (far below), Consumers Union does trust government above the free markets, to not just control markets reasonably through regulation, but to snarl the health industries in their greedy, poorly budgeting, non-consumer-oriented grip. Or so it would appear. You be the judge.


I, for one, was a bit ticked off about this group's eager part in pushing omnivorous governmental "regulation" (read: effective taking-over) of health care in the States. This, just below, is the reply I gave to the Consumers Union "alert" email, farther below, regarding health reform.


My Rant to CU's Kathy Mitchell

Dear Kathy Mitchell:

For goodness and good sense sake, how is government blatantly maneuvering to control the free market going to help us? We need regulatory reform, control, YES, CONTROL, of these big insurance companies, but not a statist approach to controlling huge chunk of the economy. This message sends another message -- that you are eager to head down the path of government control of a major portion of our economy. That is, it is far to say, not what this country's wealth is built on. Without needing to point out to me that it is also built on the backs of poorly paid workers, and slaves, etc., give me a current reason for why the free market will fail us, but the government will not?

Why do YOU trust government in this broad matter (not merely health cost coverage), but not markets? Of all the interest groups in this fight, I would have thought you'd have had an issue with vigorous state-run economic efforts that are being brazenly shoved at us, only slowed by those you badge as the enemy of progress. It is not the free market that brings all types of innovation, including to medicine? How is this bill upholding that hope for the future?

WE NEED CHANGE. I AGREE. Not whatever change suits the characters in support of big-government, let-the-state-solve-all-our-problems, ideas. We need changes that affect how the market and regulation affects our health industries -- insurance, medical tech, hospitals, doctors, drugs, etc. -- not the unions of government workers and such getting all that they want at the cost of those of us who are not in unions, or interested in government abusing us over the free market abusing us. Neither is appealing. We need the government to do their REAL job -- regulating, supporting advances (with our tax dollars going to innovative businesses) in the best interest of the PEOPLE, and the markets to do their jobs -- innovating, creating jobs, paying taxes (which are costs handed to consumers: so, allowing employees and consumers to afford to live and pay their taxes).

This bill, if anyone has actually managed to read it in its most recent morphing to allay legitimate concerns, is not right. They wanted to cram it in our faces in August, you'll remember, and resistance, if nothing else, has forced those not intrinsically meant to benefit through money or power to actually have to address REAL concerns.

If this is the best that Consumers Union can do for the public, then you are suspected of an embarrassingly non-consumer-oriented statist leaning, by me, and likely an awful lot of other folks, who once held up the group as an apolitical consumer group, generally reliable and unbiased. Not so much, anymore.

[Salutations....]

The CU Action Fund email

On Dec 15, 2009, Consumers Union Action Fund wrote:

650,000 could lose coverage so Aetna investors can enjoy higher returns. That's not how it should work. Help us end the stalemate and get a bill out of the Senate. Give just $5 right now--for a holiday victory that can improve our lives forever. Dear Xxxxxx, You can't put a price on good health. But one of the nation's largest health insurance companies just did. Aetna – which is on track to make $1 billion this year – says it will raise customers' premiums in order to make even more profit. The company expects the price hike to force as many as 650,000 people to lose their insurance – the equivalent of the residents of cities like Denver, Boston, Seattle or Baltimore losing their coverage at once. Meanwhile, health reform opponents say our insurance markets are 'working' just great, and they're doing everything they can to kill prospects for real change this week. But when an insurance CEO is willing to cut hundreds of thousands of Americans' health coverage to make even more profit, is our health insurance market really working for us? We don't have a billion dollars, but we have hundreds of thousands of people like you. Your $5 contributions in the fall got a TV ad on the air in key states--one that put Consumer Reports' trusted name behind the effort to finally pass reform now. The ad is still running, and we want to keep it running. We're joining forces with the American Cancer Society, AARP and other consumer groups to focus the media on the real story: Americans are losing coverage and facing huge rate increases while the industry lobbies against the changes that will help the most. Consumers Union is also knocking on doors in holdout Senators' states to generate calls and letters from constituents demanding they stand up for American families and take on the insurance giants. All these things cost money. We're asking people in every state to pitch in so we can open minds and hearts in the states where lawmakers are on the fence. While the Senate bill isn't perfect, it rights a lot of wrongs. Companies would have to spend the bulk of your insurance premium on your health care -- or else rebate you the difference. They could no longer deny you coverage, drop you if you get sick, or charge you ridiculous out-of-pocket costs for treatment. After a Senate bill passes, we're going to push to get the best of both Senate and House measures into a final reform package. Whatever you can give will help us fight for you.  We are the closest we've been in history to getting all Americans affordable, reliable health care. Take reform across the finish line! Sincerely, Kathy Mitchell Consumers Union Action Fund, Inc. 506 W. 14th Street, Suite A Austin, TX 78701

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (twitter)

Climate change problem to be solved one burning auto at a time

More peace and planet activism by assault -- in Copenhagen this time.
The same thing as anti-war on terrorism activists, anti-Capitalism
(WTO, etc., events) activists, and such. Clearly not the majority, but
how is it they always manage to do these foul, violent acts in the
name of peace and nature?

This is the strangest way to support reducing pollution: a police
water cannon is putting out at least one car burning thanks to climate
change/global warming/global cooling activists. Here's a helpful
solution to the global pollution problem: STOP BURNING CARS AND
FIREBOMBING BUILDINGS.

Cong. Alan Grayson visits Ocala local leaders, gets jeers from detractors

Who will stop the $1 million man? The man who almost lost, and spent lots of his own money to win in the leadership lottery. A congressman who is a national embarrassment (I like to think) for anyone who looks at politics as something more than a Jerry Springer Show form of reality entertainment.

Alan Grayson, a lawyer who was known for fighting corruption, is a first term congressman for a gerrymandered district taking in part of Orlando and lots of other areas.

In 2008, Grayson spent around $1 million of his own money to beat an average,  and unpopular, GOP congressman named Ric Keller. Grayson won with only 52% of the vote. There were a lot of noses held shut in November 2008 inside the voting booths of Florida District 8, I suspect.

Lots of people, even outside the district, seem to admire Grayson, for "telling it like it is". Whatever "it" is, it is not clear without a lengthy explanation with plenty of projecting by the explainer. Fans hear what they want to hear from Grayson, and nothing he says matters to his fans, just that he's being against The Other Side. He stated the GOP health reform plan was to have everyone sick "die quickly". Hmm. Can I see that bill? It was meant to be funny. (Alert: he is not a funny man, except perhaps creepy funny.)

He expanded on that, saying we should prevent a national "holocaust" by accepting a massive health reform plan that amounts to a huge, costly entitlement program very much like Medicare. (You know how well that program's doing in controlling spending, don't you? It is not well, not well at all.)

He did a lot of good in his legal career, in the fight against government contract corruption, proving to be a standout in that area. It would be nice to see him return to that arena. One can dream, can't one (or millions)? After all, he thinks he's being clear, and that's stunningly funny (quote from Ocala.com site):

Grayson has upset Republicans - and even a few Democrats - with some of his rhetoric in recent weeks, including his statements on the Republicans' position on health care and a reference to an adviser to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as a "K Street whore."

The remarks have made Grayson a media and Internet sensation.

In an interview, the congressman attributed that reaction to people having become accustomed to a "culture of dishonesty" in Washington, where elected leaders shrink from telling what they really think on issues.

"A few Democrats"? Seriously? Only a few? Gag. If so, that's what's wrong with Democrats these days -- no longer the party of a Truman or a JFK, or even an Olympia Snowe (har har).

You would probably find that view laughable if you watched a series of clips of Grayson's prepared and practiced antics, on the floor of the US House, doing some of this "telling it like it is", and using "holocaust" regarding the -- unholy? -- lack of health coverage in the States. You could also visit his shamelessly pandering site, namesofthedead.com, which celebrates, apparently, everyone who died not from illness, but illness made clearly worse -- one would think from his rhetoric -- by insufficient medical care or health coverage.

Or, you could not go to the site, and just hope he goes back to fighting corruption in 2011.

Read the whole Ocala.com article  at the site.



- j Ruse (aka AirFarceOne, on Twitter)

NIH is NIP - Normally Interested in Porn

NIH is NIP. National Institutes of Health is obsessed with human beings. Or, more accurately, human bodies, doing the wild thang. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. 

Will this be covered if we get the public health coverage option for some added, uhh, federal "savings" of tax and income dollars of common citizens? Porn surfing paid time (for getting) off? (Sorry.)

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/29/1430259/Porn-Surfing-Rampant-At-US-Science-Foundation?from=rss

- j Ruse, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Breaking: National Utopian Telegenic Socialists party to launch in Hollywood

RUMORED: Sean Penn, Janine Garofalo, Rosy O'Donnell, Whoopie Goldberg, Joy Behar and several other celebrities are reportedly under discussion to launch National Utopian Telegenic Socialists party, or the Hollywood NUTS.

Their political platform is said to be in the midst of a vocal sorting out by the well-known actors and entertainers. Negotiations on the group's official stand on a broad group of issues aren't expected to be completed until sometime in 2010.


- j Ruse, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Are nuclear weapons deserving of a Nobel Prize? Obama vowed to earn his, the Bomb already has

It's refreshing to see that, over at the oft-slobbering news rag TIME, someone can manage to offer thoughts that are based on reality, not wishful thinking, in the always-vital area of nuclear proliferation. (The emphases below are mine.)

From TIME magazine, 'Why the Nobel Peace Prize Should Go to Nuclear Weapons':

As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel committee truly cares about peace, they will think a little harder about actually trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description.

During the 31 years leading up to the first atomic bomb, the world without nuclear weapons engaged in two global wars resulting in the deaths of an estimated 78 million to 95 million people, uniformed and civilian. "

Somewhere above 78 million people died in two world wars, within 31 years. Since 1945, how are we doing? Better, I'd say.

Is it impossible for anyone to see that so long as nukes are CONTROLLED, thus, not in the hands of those who will use them simply to advance their religious or power-hungry zealotry, that the THREAT of them in the world actually makes it a safer place? What exactly is the educational background of the dunces who think the US is a bigger threat with nuclear weapons than another country? Only the powerful, sociopathic zealots who are now kept -- barely -- in check by our having them.

Amazingly, there are calls for more centralized governing, even in what started out as what you could call the individualism center of the planet, the United States. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Bigger government is corrupt -- absolutely. Especially in the still-kicking power center of the world, the United States.

Please, wake up, or take your voice out of the argument, thanks, if you think some hands-holding, rainbows-without-storms, birds-chirping, floating cars fantasy is going to happen in your lifetime. Not going to come out of human effort alone. It's a nice sentiment. Sadly, it always reminds me of the outset of the original Battlestar Galactica, when the human powers-that-be insist, despite advice otherwise, that they can live peacefully with their aggressive enemy. Also, it reminds me of the cliche, but not irrelevant, historic blunder of UK PM Chamberlain who signed (with France) an agreement with Adolf Hitler that gave part of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. Hitler invaded Poland only months later.

Only a stubborn cynic refuses to hope for a time of peace, but only a perfect fool believes they will be living in one sometime soon.

The world is getting more complex at the same time it is shrinking. We are in the midst of a shaping global economy that differs from the one that existed even 25 years ago. The requirement needs to be that the real troublemakers -- the centralized control dictators/theocracies, the extreme zealots, the terrorism-supporting factions -- prove to the truly democracy-oriented that they are willing to play far nicer. It is not to be the other way around. The US and its less imposing allies don't owe these people anything. But some leaders disagree. In fact, Obama seems to think the US was on a track of empire-building up to and until he became president. That's interesting from a man who uses the word "I" far more than "we".

A nuclear-free world is the fantasy of goofballs and academic arguments, yet, in the States, we now have a platitude-rich president who joins that crowd as a true believer, by his words.

Holocaust-denying, genocidal, mass-dog-killing, political-foe-assassinating, gross-poverty-concealing, terrorist-supporting, and/or Third World-resource-grifting, and other far-flung governments centered on abuses, not embarrassed by its exposure, are not interested in getting along with us. We are spoiled, misinformed, TV comedy show informed go-alongs, to them. Even those of us disgusted by the spoiled, misinformed, TV comedy show informed go-alongs. Their idea of peace is a world without your spoiled asses in it, or indoctrinated into their way of thinking.

They aren't interested in giving their people the freedoms the spoiled brats -- the super rich AND the car-driving, jeans-wearing, mobile texters -- in the First World enjoy. They are fighting for their ideals to win out, and for at-home survival. If America has its nuclear arsenal to lean on, like some bartender leaning on his 12-gauge letting the rough drunks know he means business, we might as well invite all the openness that cultural pluralism offers, invite the combustible mix of legalized recreational pot, a trust system for violent convicts, sharia law, and the wife-killing machismo of Brazil. Why not? If we cannot live by the ideas that exist, why not just live by whatever feels like it'll work, for a year, a month, a week? Why not make it a cage fight of bad social practices? Openness to the point of life-meaninglessness. In the end, the ones with some self-control and the most discipline will win. Is that you?

You best hope that living in a world like The Road Warrior is as fun to live as it is (at least for some) to watch.

Read on at the link: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929553,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

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Bloggers report nut-jobs poll created on Facebook, then offer creepy anti-conservative diatribe

(A comment on a good move that instantaneously turns smelly-bad by authors of a rail-jumping 'Slobbering Blog')

An idiot Facebook user created a poll asking users if our president, Barack Obama, should be violently offed, wasted, done away. Pure madness, right? Happily, some loyal Obama supporters with a blog were aware and activist enough, when they noticed this thing, to not vote in it (I assume they didn't), but instead report it to the Secret Service.

What an adult, awesome thing to do, huh? I thought so too. Then I read their blog.

Say these saviors of all of us from a vile FB weeny, on their blog:

"The hate speech, the threats have gotten completely out of hand. And those who have incited viewers and listeners.. (here I omitted the non-liberal targets of their opinions)... are responsible for a good part of this horrific activity."

Oh, COMPLETELY out of hand! Yes! Horrible! This FB poll by some college dweeb, this is just one tiny little SIGN that the nation is much more dangerous with conservatives saying things of a broad, anti-leftist and/or anti-statist variety! They marched, for goodness sake! And in Washington, DC! Who marches in DC but scary people! (Like Christian fathers, or a million -- or so -- black men, or ... members of the military.)

These Thomas Paines of blogging go on, with great knowing: "No, it is not 'grassroots', not even close. It is a sick, terrifying, dangerous movement toward violence and the worst kind of civil unrest."

You know, that worst kind of civil unrest: the organized, overwhelmingly tame, and nonpolluting kind. Why, what else could that be but the WORST? Else the accusations and paranoia of these bloggers would be ... completely illogical, utter silliness! (Note: the impish exception is not the rule; the rule is the rule. Look into it.)

These modern Samuel Adamses go on: "The same "party leaders" who get their rocks off by pretending to be macho and exerting their windbaggy, wrongheaded power will one day come to realize that killing is real, not just a word on a Facebook poll."

Huh! So what these people are saying is, life ISN'T video game! I've learned something here! I wonder if those guys who created that Bush assassination film (YouTube clip only) realized this? No way. They would never have made that movie if they understood death is REAL. I think these bloggers must be the first in years to appreciate the difference between irate stooges' antics and reality, in fact. They seem so sure if it, at least.

And finally, these entirely rational American heroes state, of the obvious leaders of all these millions of dangerous anti-tax, anti-big government activists (all actually racists longing for the days of separate water coolers and when only white blues musicians got paid fairly, it's sooo obvious): "Time to tame them. And time to demand that they tame their deranged, diseased herd of blind followers."

Oh, most definitely. Taming them and their millions of deranged, diseased followers!!!!!!

I am sooo glad the Internet has rational people like these bloggers around to help us all keep our rational, aluminum-foil-laced cowboy hat-covered noggins.

Here's the full post by these brainiacs, which effectively gets interesting at "Okay, that's it, I've had it."

- jR AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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White House Idiots: 'A New Beginning' ... subcategorizing the world

I am disappointed. 

If this is the tone that the current Administration wishes to set, then removing them ought to be not just a priority for conservatives and the GOP, but to remove them in 2012 ought to be a central goal for anyone who prefers to keep shallow cheerleading at sports and not in world policy. 

This was offensive to me as someone who tries to be fair-minded when I can stomach it, against the offensive bias of people such as this Axelrod guy. I have conservative views, but incredibly, I am not a far right extremist (yeah, the two aren't automatically inclusive, go figure). This was offensive to me as someone who does not truly judge whole collections of people based on one fact about their life, in a broad stroke (in other words, I do not practice prejudiced and bigoted and illogical judgement of certain groups; in this case, Muslims). 

Who, exactly, are the people that the Obama Admin is talking to -- and about, through these words? The tone was pandering, unaccomplished and lightheaded. Who are they trying to change? One sad old woman at a McCain campaign stop in 2008? A few ignorant Christian preachers in some backwards church in the U.S.? A white supremacist leader and his angry, damaged followers hiding in hills somewhere? Who are they trying to "convert" to "progressive" ideals (so-called) with this language?

The Presumptuous Presidency. That's what we ought to start calling this administration and its myopic legions, if this is the extent of communiques from the road at the breach of an important -- allegedly so -- speech. Read the message from the White House, and tell me if you HONESTLY think someone would disagree. Anyone, that is, that isn't living a foul, bigoted, closed life. In other words, what is there to disagree with but for the most foul bigot (and, sorry, that blatantly means the obtuse majority of conservatives, too, you "open-minded" liberals), and what in it was not part of the policy in the past? These folks believe their own fallacies, it seems. Fully! But what could possibly be offensive about the White House's bid to communicate with the greater Muslim world?

For one, Axelrod called Americans who are Muslims "Muslim Americans". Excuse me? SO, clearly, by labeling, by categorizing, by dividing they are uniting. That is what we learn from this statement, plain and simple. 

Tagging everyone with "[_____] American" labeling that does nothing but make us seem like a country overseen by untreated obsessive compulsives who are hopelessly labeling everything. 

I am then going to preemptively label myself a "Disappointed American" then, till the Obama Admin's insulting and pandering lecturing goes away. 

This, immediately below, is an abbreviation of the mindless and offensive part, to me, of the Axelrod message:

"Muslim countries ... are filled with extraordinary people who ... want to live their lives ... just as in America. Part of what makes America great is ... seven million Muslim Americans living here today and enriching [us]. 

We can extend that ... abroad. It won't always be easy, but if we make an effort to bridge our differences rather than resigning ourselves to animosity, we can move toward a more peaceful world over time. "

Duh. 

When has this kind of policy has NOT been our attitude -- throughout the Bush Administration, and prior? Wishing it were the view does not make it true. And all the arguing about it, all the attempting to link war to it, still does not make it so. Afghanistan and Iraq wars and reorganization nightmares they became are not joyous events, but they are not the foul, self-interested events that Obama's friends want, backhandedly, for everyone to believe them to be. Obama reminds that he inherited these wars. Thanks for stepping up to the plate, sir. 

It bothers me for how it simply points out the obvious, and brings one to the only conclusion for someone who is not a blatant, ignorant bigot and anti-Muslim (rather than anti-terrorist or anti-extremist Muslim zealot). So how many blatant bigots are out there influencing everyone in America, exactly? Only those fooling themselves are convinced that they are loudly influencing America. Look at the foolishness from the White House. 

So, where have you been living, Obama Admin folks, with crazies who think all Muslims are bad people, or terrorists? Let me know where that is, as I don't want to live there. 

This is a most arrogant, self-anointing presidency, judging from such presumptuous, egotistical, statements backhandedly offensive to those outside their fanatic followers ("believers"?) such as this message. 

It appears they blatantly believe that GW Bush found all Muslims to be evil, then, judging from this, but like true propagandists, they don't come out and say it, they just lead you from the position that they want you to believe GW and conservatives have, to what view they have, with such a "letter" to American people. 

That, or "wake up, America! September 11 happened a whopping eight years ago, so get over it now!" 

What a shame. 

Here's the whole message, in entirety:

Hello - 

As a Senior Advisor to the President, I'm here in Cairo, Egypt where I watched President Obama deliver an unprecedented speech calling for a new beginning for the United States and Muslim communities around the world. 

We all know that there has been tension between the United States and some Muslim communities. But, as the President said this morning, if all sides face the sources of tension squarely and focus on mutual interests, we can find a new way forward. 

The President outlined some big goals for this new beginning in his speech -- including disrupting, dismantling, and defeating violent extremism. It was a historic speech, and since many Americans were asleep at the time it was given we wanted to make sure you had a chance to see it: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/NewBeginning/

Majority-Muslim countries around the world are filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives, just as in America. Indeed, part of what makes America great is having nearly seven million Muslim Americans living here today and enriching our culture and communities. 

We can extend that kind of relationship abroad. It won't always be easy, but if we make an effort to bridge our differences rather than resigning ourselves to animosity, we can move toward a more peaceful world over time. 

Thank you, 
David Axelrod 
Senior Advisor to the President 

---

Life, liberty and the pursuit of bigger government? Can you try again, please?

How does one go from small government to the massive joke we are now under? It's called power-seeking folks all palling around and taking from the rest of us who wish to think for ourselves, and enjoy some idea of freedom. Freedom is an illusion, they say. Sadly, it is becoming more and more an illusion these days.

If you want the government to help you, be careful what you ask for. The government should be there for LIMITED reasons. Not for what it's been turned into for the last 60 and more years. This could have been a time to pull back from the big gov't that Roosevelt started. Instead, we're going even farther into it. Not just the Democrats to blame, mind you! This has been ongoing for a long time. Remember that, and remember it, too, when you vote, and when you have a chance to have your views known.

Smaller the government, the bigger the freedoms for ALL. The poor will always be poor is the government is walfaring them, and corporations will always be greedy so long at the gov't rewards it.

Shame.


Click the link at bottom to read the whole piece. This is from GetLiberty.org.

Forgotten Founding Wisdom

By Howard Rich

“Sacred and undeniable.”

That’s how Thomas Jefferson originally described the basic American rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Of course, Ben Franklin changed these to “inalienable” rights, and a printer’s error resulted in them becoming “unalienable.”

Still, the meaning was clear. Or at least it was 233 years ago—when the U.S. government existed as a “necessary evil” that lived within its means, not a self-perpetuating Orwellian nightmare propped up by trillions of dollars in bad debt.

At its inception, American government was created to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—and yet sadly, today it is more often than not a force against these elemental American rights.

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined,” James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45. “Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

Really? Then how are we to explain the unprecedented centralization of power we now see in Washington D.C. -- a process fueled by billions in unfunded mandates and strings-attached bailouts?

Get the full story here.

jR, aka AirFarceOne (twitter)

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Fatherlessness: A hole no government can fill

Obama, according to this article, said that an absentee father "leaves a hole in a child's heart that a government can't fill". Seriously?

WHO, pray tell, would WANT a government, a bureaucratic organization that maintains streets, oversees laws, arrests criminals and such, should take the role of a FATHER, exactly?

He spoke at length about how his father, Barack Obama Sr., left home early. The future president was just 2 at the time and saw his dad only once more, at age 10, a short visit that still left a lasting imprint.

"I had a heroic mom and wonderful grandparents who helped raise me and my sister, and it's because of them that I'm able to stand here today," he told a throng of youngsters and leaders of community organizations. "But despite all their extraordinary love and attention, that doesn't mean that I didn't feel my father's absence. That's something that leaves a hole in a child's heart that a government can't fill."

In candid terms, Obama said he promised himself he would not repeat his own father's mistakes.

"Just because your own father wasn't there for you, that's not an excuse for you to be absent also. It's all the more reason for you to be present," Obama told the young men in his audience.

"You have an obligation to break the cycle and to learn from those mistakes, and to rise up where your own fathers fell short and to do better than they did with your own children," Obama said. "That's what I've tried to do in my life."

An estimated 24 million American children are growing up with absent fathers, and a disproportionate number of them are African-American. Those children are at higher risk of falling into lives of poverty and crime and becoming parents themselves in their teenage years.

Don't worry, I'm with the government, and I am here to father you. *Groan*

Can we please have a real democracy when all this economic strife is over? PLEASE?

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Created in a heat of politically motivated outrage, right here on Blogger.

WOW they are crazy

Chris Matthews is half the fool he was many years ago, and he can only manage the same-minded, and kiss-ups from the NBCs, on his Sunday show, I notice. He is unfunny, yet insists on being "funny" and has his own fawning pals, like some has-been comic who still somehow garners big paychecks. Stunning just how far NBC and MSNBC have plummeted into so much of the one-sided commentary and misleading so-called "journalism".

I guess they THINK they are the anti-Fox News, but that's such a joke, and I despise bias on either side, take it personally that the self-centered liberals ruined (for me) what I had once hoped would be and considered to be my career industry.

Fox News is red with embarrassment for MSNBC, due to how clear their bias is on discussion and commentary shows. Janeane Garofalo was on Olbermann weeks ago, was the most offensive I've caught (on YouTube or somewhere) any of these horrendous soap-box Hollywood liberals ever be in a highly public stage (word gets around about the crazy talk, but this was there on the show itself, not an anecdote). (She was thrashing Tea Parties as being purely, simply full of anti-black racists, that the whole thing was not at all about taxes, gov't spending, or anything, just an excuse for rednecks to be racist in public. Stunning, horrible, offensive, miserably out of her element idiot, she is.)

After that humorless tirade, I eagerly wanted to see her whiney little computer geek character on "24" this season die -- just for some joyous make-believe comeuppance. (I was disappointed.) I'm sure she is dead ... on the inside. Sure seems like it. Certainly, mentally, she's thoroughly contorted.

I don't have cable now, thanks to some tough months, and I don't think I want it back. Just limits me to a few channels and HULU, etc., online, and keeps me away from the moodily pontificating boobs on news programs. I can live with that. Did that while I lived elsewhere, for most of the years. Healthy!

So... Newsweek. Gag! They had that truly lame effort to sell magazines, "We are all Socailists now". It was a nothing article. I read it online. Like a fart in church, and not even a loud one. Har!

TIME is another great example of a pack of fawning roadies doing magazines. I had subscription for a year -- got it sorta free (NWA flight miles were to expire, so we got lots of magazines). I was eager to see it end after all the stupid adoration this year! You;d think it was exaggerating, but I was seeing it in every issue, just about. Amusing, were it not for so many go-along sheep believing what these drunken shepherds tell them to believe.

You should catch, online somewhere, the McLaughlin Group show of this past week, and the way Eleanor Clift of NEWSWEEK was going with both fists in favor of Obama and his apology tour of Arab nations and such. Simply stunning, how cozy it seems so many are in MSM -- with a utopian myopia.

My decision of late is to avoid the news as much as possible. I know what I know, let the loud mouths ruin someone else's day, not mine. Local news, I read some stuff online, and otherwise, the world can rot. For now. I needed a loooong breather from the divisiveness that the election and the economic crisis has brought out. It is too much about amateur pontificating on subjects, rather than interviews with true experts.

Saw rerun of the March 2009 interview with Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke on 60 Minutes (also can catch that online), which I avoided first time it aired. Was the most plainspoken, fact-involving, emotions involved but not hysterical thing on the economy I've seen in a long, long time. It made sense, and he seemed sincere. Stunning, seeing what he is and what he's up against. For me, with a view from business education and long interest in economic things, it was a very good perspective to hear. He is THE MAN on economic matters, and far more "safe" than blowhards like Obama, etc.

We need more professionals, like Bernanke, and less blowhards, in every walk of life. Especially as essential leaders.

Just some of my thoughts of late.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (on Twitter)

Ultimate Fighting: solar cooling versus global warming

Nothing's funnier to me than an atheist follower of the Green Movement or Climate Change activism. "I think God is a cruel lie, but unproven theories and reasons to hate industry and people having jobs, and civil expansion, are AWESOME!" That said...

TG Daily - Harvard astrophysicist: Sunspot activity correlates to global climate change

Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon tells us that Earth has seen a reduced level of sunspot activity for the past 18 months, and is currently at the lowest levels seen in almost a century. Dr. Soon says "The sun is just slightly dimmer and has been for about the last 18 months. And that is because there are very few sunspots." He says when the sun has less sunspots, it gives off less energy, and the Earth tends to cool. He notes 2008 was a cold year for this very reason, and that 2009 may be cold for the same.

As of today, there have been 15 days in a row without any sunspots. In 2008 there were 266 days scattered throughout the year without sunspots, and in 2007 there were 163 days without sunspots. These are the #2 and #9 fewest sunspots years seen since 1911.

Earth warming, sun cooling. What kind of climate change should we be watching out for, and why does Al Gore insist on lying about 200-foot rises in ocean levels just to get us to stop using so much oil? Groan.

Dr. Soon's field of specialty is the sun. He explains that sunspots are planet-sized pockets of magnetism with much greater energy output and matter expulsion, some of which strikes the Earth's atmosphere as extra energy from the sun. He says when sunspots are present, the temperature goes up, when they are not present the temperature goes down. He also told a reporter at WBZ, CBS TV 38 (in Boston, MA) that beginning in 1645 and continuing through 1715, there were no observed sunspots. This is the period known as the Little Ice Age.

He also explains that sunspots go in cycles, which are around 11 years. There are periods of maximum activity (called the Solar Max) and periods of minimal or no activity (called the Solar Min).

Around the year 2000, the current cycle had reached its maximum. As of right now in 2009, it is at a period of zero sunspot activity. Still, he explains that no one knows for sure how long the cycles will last, and there are precedents that sunspots can persist for long periods of time, or there can be few or none for long periods of time (as happened between 1645 and 1715 during the Little Ice Age).

Could it be that the universe is more significant than people, and it is less stout (that is, we must protect it, like it's more pliable than we are)? Somebody ask Al Gore his views of a self-correcting planet and universe. Because apparently he's the poster child for all things "science", right? For the current leadership and the sore winners of the recent U.S. election? Will we simply find reason to start a broad-reaching, formal sun worship religion in the U.S.? Hmmm... legislating nature worship -- making Gore's mission complete....

Dr. Soon is an astrophysicist whose field of expertise is the sun for Harvard and the Smithsonian. He said, "The Sun is the all encompassing energy giver to life on planet Earth." And presently it's getting a lot of attention from scientists. He expects that if 2009 is another cold year which correlates to the decreased sunspot activity, that the global warming theories which attribute temperature fluctuations to increases in the levels of atmospheric CO2 will need to take notice.

He says, "If this deep solar minimum continues and our planet cools while CO2 levels continue to rise, thinking needs to change. This will be a very telling time and it's very, very useful in terms of science and society in my opinion".

So we're set to lower our CO2, except China isn't. I think that's great, it helps. But what is coming? Cooling? Warming? One and then the other? Why is cooling going to still create a rise in ocean levels? Are we just being scammed by some scientists like people in the Middle Ages, etc., were being scammed -- and some today, still, of course -- by a shamelessly power-seeking clergy/political leadership? Is this really just to get us all to behave in the ways they want us to, despite any solid evidence of anything?

Today is not the day that question will be answered. Come back tomorrow....

Not really.

Al Gore as much as has said he's exaggerated all along about "global warming" to get people to react. That's called propaganda: lies to achieve a desired goal is plain old political propaganda. Yet, all these sad little minds adore the Gore.

Just wait for Al Gore to give you your orders, children, for further response to nature's activity. You know -- be a mindless dweeb that blames industry for everything and adores the losers of most elections, so long as they are not Republicans. And good luck with that.


- AirFarceOne (twitter)

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Is Cable News overlooking its own loss of newsie-ness?

Fanboy.com » Blog Archive » Is Cable News Twittering Past the Graveyard? A Little Birdie Told Me…

These days to be an anchor on on one of the three news networks gives you the audience of a rock star. More and more the field becomes less about breaking news and more about personality and opinion — and that’s the beginning of their end. While various tech pundits write sermons about the demise of newspapers due to the net, the real story that everyone is missing is that cable news networks are slowing [sic] having nothing to do with actual news.

Uh, yup. More about opinion, angles, telling half a story, and dullardly infuriating a fat segment of the population. Much of the time. Unless one really care so much about news (really care, not just pretend to care, play at caring, etc.) one doesn't respect that journalism, and anything that isn't bluntly presented as opinion, ought to -- simply ought to! -- be balanced. Best effort put forward. I think so-called "new" journalism opened the door for bias that is now wide open. There is, on TV, a lack of journalism and an increase in propagandist activist yammerings.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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NBC in DC posts liberal group mocking Tea Party as if it were event video

In what I consider always disappointing, in a mocking-the-conservatives, laughing at non-liberals fashion, NBC in the nation's capitol posted a quite juvenile article by Jim Iovino along with a video of a group of fake Tea Party protesters, who seem to be a lefty group that did a mocking video of the protests for YouTube.

It's about context, and this one is foul. This station posted the fake video and mocking article more than likely just to be their usual evasive, unclear and misleading selves, leading some to never even question whether it was a real video, leaving a really misinformed impression on liberal fools (after all, that's now NBC's job, with MSNBC and CNN, it appears). Or, it was to leave some to think it was a shallow attempt to offer fake video to further mock the protest, setting off those in favor of the protest. Either way, not sure when doing news became doing distracting, divisive, unclarified comedy. Apparently, its only the dumb who would like to get real news from the media any longer, eh? The smart people all simply want comedy.

Why would they do such a thing? Why, because everyone knows that people who don't like taxes and have conservative, rational, small government mindsets are not protesters, they are the enemy of all. That's NBC's (and MSNBC's), and CNN's, take, among others, at least. Chris Matthews and Keith Oblermann are masters of dodgy news shows, so these guys are simply following the existing, and most recent, company model. Change is always good, of course, despite all else.

If they haven't cowered into their cave with their fake video, click the link and have a look at the article and the video provided to us by these alleged journalists. Video is of course on YouTube, numblingly. Because they are a liberal news outlet, I guess they are burdened with helping the poor and needy and cannot afford to carry camera to actual events, have to find it online. (That's sarcasm. Deal with it.) Where else would they get video but YOU TUBE, the most important news source in history, eh?

1 Million Tea Bags, But No Place to Dump | NBC Washington

Clearly, NBC and MSNBC envy the success of imaginary news man Jon Stewart and "realize" that the future of news is not news, but fake news and comedy bits. Lenin said religion was the opium of society; NBC knows that, today, it is actually comedy bits that make people laugh and somehow agree with you, like feeding a dog a treat and he'll follow you.

I am discouraged that such pseudo-news -- is this TV's further destruction of the already questionable "new journalism" concept? -- continues without full frontal insults from all comers -- liberals, conservatives, other news outlets, and even fake news champions such as Jon Stewart. Comedy doing news is one thing -- and illegitimate source of news. News doing comedy, especially in such subject matters, is really discouraging for the whole industry.

- jR, AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Are finance markets holding U.S. at their mercy?

The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic (May 2009)

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

Written by Simon Johnson


Image (with article): Jim Bourg/Reuters/Corbis

Take a deep breath and consider the possibilities.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Sen. Dodd's reelection bid embraces his, umm, success with banking

From the Political Hah! Dept.:

Chris Dodd’s Comeback Slogan: ‘Banking on Change’ - BrianFaughnan’s blog - RedState

So what’s Chris Dodd’s plan to save his lucrative government gig? Remind people of his spot on the Banking Committee [link to RollCall article]:

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), facing increasingly difficult odds in 2010, is spending the two-week recess barnstorming his home state to try to improve his political standing…

The appearances are part of a series dubbed “Banking for Change,” meant to highlight Dodd’s work on consumer protection issues as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Seriously? [link to Dodd's site]

If Dodd manages to win this time around, having proven what a terribly self-interested boob he is -- and it appears that Conn. voters are even less cerebral than Mass. and West Va. voters (Ted, John Kerry, Barney, etc.) -- it shows just how much work that sincere, dignified conservatives and general non-cretins will have to get through to try to recover some sway in D.C. That is, to clarify, there is a lot of work to come for people who believe in simple things:

• smaller government,
• a balanced budget,
• power to the actual people (not their elected king by proxy),
• peace through strength,
• America still is (stuck or blessed as) the leader of the free world and should act like it,
• despising mistreatment of people here but giving passes for mistreatment of "groups" elsewhere is absurd
• liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness don't equate with living in a welfare state
• we have the biggest guns, and we don't prefer to use them, but we damn well will
  

So, cut to the chase: Get the pitchforks, effigies, tar, feathers, and torches ready. Just like the good old, pre-Revolutionary War, days.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Jihad Council tells U.S.: Agree with us or you will have less friends!

TheHill.com - Jihad Council warns U.S. to change Muslim policies

“The only version of democracy and international relations the U.S. accepts is the one that serves its own vested interests,” UJC spokesman Syed Sadaqat Hussain said in a Thursday statement. “Flouting all international norms, the U.S. is declaring India as the leader in this region, and is trying to weaken China on the one hand and Pakistan on the other by granting India regional supremacy.

"Examined carefully, the terrorism on which worldwide hysteria has been whipped up is not terrorism at all but a fight to protect one's rights, of which the U.S. double standards are the basic cause,” the UJC spokesman said.

“Resistance is bound to grow if the U.S. does not alter its current policy against Muslims, and it will have more enemies in the world than friends, which would not be in its interests,” he said.

They need to find better writers. Or get out of the cave more. Seriously. If we don't change our policy and do what, exactly? We are anti-muslim? Clearly, we are anti-terrorism, anti-extremist, anti-abuse (by Muslim extremists who cruelly use their youths, mostly, as human bombs). How are we creating a realm where India becomes the "leader in this region"? By not going out of our way to make things difficult for India?

Did the Patriots make threats to every other nation when they were trying to gain independence from Great Britain? Just wondering. How about Pakistan, back when it was cut up from part of the Indian subcontinent, essentially dividing the Muslims and the Hindu, governmentally (not exactly, and not cleanly by population).

Fairly sure the Patriots weren't pissing on France's shoes, or anyone else's, like this, back when this swath of North America was comprised of lowly colonial activists intent on being free from King George.

Warring based on a radical distortion of religion is the most dangerous of all. It was the ruin of Christianity in the Crusades, for instance, and it managed to survive through the abuses of power-lusting popes and ethically vacant kings. Take the mafia, add religious teachings, and you get jihadists. They seem awfully wonderful for people on the one count, but one the other hand... yeah?

Jihadists base their entire effort -- name word means "holy war", after all -- on the superiority of their faith over others. Why should anyone regard them? Because they excel at empty words and vicious abuse of their own troubled and angry youths, as human bombs? How many times does it need to be said: Show SOME genuine interest in living and letting live, and then get back to us.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Mad-made disaster averted in UK, no thanks to politically correct mundaneness

Manchester, England was to be a hot spot for suicide bombings this Easter weekend. You know, because it's all the Christians' fault.

What a shameful and cruel path to lead one's flock -- to their deaths while killing innocents for... what? For an alleged 'cause' of some eerie image of a god.

No, Mr. Obama, these aren't what have been traditionally known, since the 1700s, as "terrorists", they are "man-made disaster" provocateurs. Thank you, liberal word-benders, for correcting us. Politically correcting us, that is. Gag.

Al-Qaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers - Telegraph

Sources told The Daily Telegraph that the arrests of 12 men in the north west of England on Wednesday were linked to a suspected plan to launch a devastating attack this weekend.

Some of the suspects were watched by MI5 agents as they filmed themselves outside the Trafford Centre on the edge of Manchester, the Arndale Centre in the city centre, and the nearby St Ann's Square.

Police were forced to round up the alleged plotters after they were overheard discussing dates, understood to include the Easter bank holiday, one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

"It could have been the next few days and they were talking about 10 days at the outside," one source said. "We had to act." Police are now engaged in a search for an alleged bomb factory, where explosives might have been assembled.

If such a plot was carried out, it would almost certainly have been Britain's worst terrorist attack, with the potential to cause more deaths than the suicide attacks of July 7, 2005, when 52 people were murdered.

This was also forced as part of the reaction to this:

The country's most senior anti-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, of the Metropolitan Police, was photographed going into Downing Street carrying a briefing paper with top secret details of Operation Pathway in full view.

Yesterday morning, Mr Quick resigned after he was told by the Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, that he had lost her confidence and that of [UK intelligence agency] MI5.

One man arrested had been in the UK on a student visa, which is how the Sept. 11 culprits got in and stayed in the U.S.

The issue of student visas represents a potential security nightmare for the police and MI5. There are 330,000 foreign students in Britain and around 10,000 such visas are issued every year to Pakistanis alone.

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, has described the student visa system as "the major loophole in Britain's border controls".

(Read the full story with link above.)

- jR, AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Florida's Crist puts essential need over politics and conservatism

Florida Governor Charlie Crist | 2009 State of the State Address

There is no doubt, that for our economy to recover, we must get people back to work. In the past several weeks I have visited with Floridians at seven unemployment offices across our state. I have looked into their eyes and I saw worry. I saw good, honest people who desperately want the opportunity to help themselves. Some argue the politics of the federal stimulus plan. My friends, while our people worry, we cannot put politics over their needs – the needs of our students and teachers, the sick and the infirm, or those out of work. We should not ask what it means to be Republican nor should we ask what it means to be Democrat; but rather what a good human being is supposed to do. In each and every one of us is the hope of the millions who sent us here. We must honor that sacred trust, to put them first.

Above is a part of Crist's State of the State address from March 3, 2009 (as written, perhaps not as it was delivered). Crist, a Republican, is not one of the governors who tried to refuse stimulus money. He has thus become a target by conservatives. That is understandable, but only so far as as is his acceptance of the money, as he outlines above. Call me anti-capitalist, but I agree with Gov. Crist, in the comment above, at least. As fate would have it, so do all our governors, as of very recently (SC's guv caved this week). Stimulus stinks, indeed, and so does how steeply off track had gone our regulations, laws and practices. Shame.

If this stimulus results in future increased taxation burdens for states, to pay for unemployment -- and welfare of a more permanent nature -- into the future, I will be thoroughly miffed. If that's the deal, then that law needs to be trounced and "un-billed" (so to speak; that is, passing a bill to remove a prior bill). Right now, today, Florida is a state that needs this money for a real crisis. Millions would have lost their unemployment -- professionals who are not being hired by the occasional retail or other company that has an opening -- without this. Is this is good thing? Define "good thing". Do I love getting unemployment, ever? No. Would most anyone getting unemployment be happy they are getting it? I seriously doubt it! I would be much happier being EMPLOYED, and I am pretty sure most people who just got on welfare rolls feels the same way.

Do I like using tax dollars for unemployment, education and to help the needy? Yes, far more than I think tax money should be used to bail out companies such as GM, AIG and to cover bad mortgages -- all inspired by cowardly attitudes, stupid laws and bad regulation. I don't want government to be any bigger, any more taxing (literally) than it is, and I vehemently want it to be less so. Screwing people out of unemployment is not the answer, however. Getting rid of the disgustingly pandering attitudes of people such as Nancy Pelosi, where Americans feel pain for basics while she calls illegals patriotic Americans, and whines about getting her own jet for trips, THAT is where the real battle lines are, not where we help -- and minimally so -- underemployed or unemployed American families.

Do I like any of this stimulus money, knowing just what it and this absurd federal budget seem to be promising? No. But reality, to me, dictates caring about the jobless and the needy Americans, not throwing the baby out with the bath water. As for the budget, well, one can only pray that plenty of people get their common sense -- and butts -- in gear and working boots on, and move Barack Obama into a nice speaking tour in November 2012. However, that seems a very far-fetched concept to me right now, seeing the adorable little mess that 2007-08 brought in and how well it was played by the Democrats (even though it was their upside-down finance markets ideals that helped everything along, too).

Meanwhile, 2010 is not very far away, and there's some Congress and gubernatorial work to do, to get rid of wacky liberals and get in some moderates and conservatives.


- jR aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Rabid leftie activism by MoveOn.org, others, betraying U.S.

Slightly idiotic, some pro-Obama nonprofit groups are trying to help encourage the Obama budget into passing, with mean advertising. Sometimes, it is like learning a relative unknowingly named their child after a disease, when groups like MoveOn.org try to "help". Big government, PACs, activist groups with no class, leaders like Pelosi and Clyburn: does Obama really need your kind of "help"?

Campaign for Obama's budget is widening - Los Angeles Times

Sen. Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, said that the TV advertising would not influence his vote. And he questioned whether the ads were consistent with the president's promise of collaboration. Obama has told lawmakers that they should not be "potted plants" -- passing his budget intact without raising questions -- Bayh said.

The president echoed that point at his prime-time news conference Tuesday, telling a national audience: "We never expected when we printed out our budget that they would simply Xerox it and vote on it."

If that's the case, Bayh asked, why are Obama allies running ads that effectively direct members to vote for the president's budget?

"The president has said this is a cooperative process," Bayh said in an interview. "Some of these groups running ads are not in sync with the president."

Members of Congress are sensitive about ads in their districts, and some say the MoveOn commercials strike a counterproductive partisan note.

One MoveOn ad, for example, is running in Democratic Rep. Christopher Carney's northeast Pennsylvania district. The district voted for Republican John McCain over Obama, and for President Bush over Democrat John F. Kerry four years earlier.

The MoveOn ad is critical of "Bush tax cuts." It urges support for "the Obama budget." In a conservative district like Carney's, an ad with an overt anti-Bush message could alienate voters, the congressman's office contends.

A Carney aide said: "This type of ultra-partisan rhetoric is not productive. There is a way to frame the budget that would pressure us, but this frame does not pressure us at all."

Carney, a member of the House's fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, has not announced a position on Obama's budget.

Way to go, yet again, MoveOn.org. My, how pro-American, all-inclusive and progressive you are. Yet... again, showing your "caring" for the common good with your "forward-looking" (I think that's what I've seen them calling it before) ads.

It looks like smash and grab rather than giving a hand -- feel the love, America? Who's betrayed whom?


- jR aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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JustOneMinute blog: Frank cares less for frankness than winning

Oh, to hell with division of government!

Ironic that a leader of the legislature assaults a leader of the judiciary for NOT legislating from the bench. But then, there is very little about Barney "Rubble" Frank proclamations that aren't somehow ironic, more often than not. If he has any challenge, he is embittered by it, all too often.

I recall that this is the man who famously claimed (but, thanks to lack of perspective in media, given a reprieve for it) that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac leaders and procedures were not at all in need of revision as recently as August 2008. Uhh, wrong!

JustOneMinute: The Ongoing Corruption Of Language

I don't find support for Frank's assertion that Scalia believes homosexuality "deserves" to be treated with disapproval; I find a stern reminder that the public deserves courts that wait until legislatures legislate before creating new rights.

Oh, well - Frank is not interested in a frank exchange of views. His goal is to shut down debate by branding everyone on the other side as a homophobe.

Barney Frank is an extreme example of one of the two types of office holders: there are, quite broadly, public servants and power seekers. They are all some mix of the two, right?

If someone listened to Frank's crude provocations and insisted that he was far more a public servant than the other, they must find professional wrestling a subtle form of entertainment.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

(Photo: credited to AP)

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EU chief deems Obama economic moves the 'road to hell'

Moneynews - EU Chief: Obama Plan is Road to Hell

The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama's plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as "the road to hell" that EU governments must avoid.

The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy.

It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.

Shocked by the outburst, other European politicians went into damage control mode, with some reproaching the Czech leader for his language and others reaffirming their good diplomatic ties with the United States. The leaders of EU's major nations -- France, Britain and Germany, among others -- largely ignored Topolanek and his remarks.

What can we expect? For every time he seems to show some rationale for the U.S. that is successful, he either does something, or someone reminds us in strong and blunt terms, just how obstinate BHO can be. In light of this, too, the Openness-in-Chief, the "TOTUS" isn't reproaching world currency ideas flaoted out there, is he? Not that I have heard. How very disappointing.

It irks me, the reserve to defend what's American on so many counts, by this president. Write off the U.S. dollars' once and future (if there is a future!) strength... it's untoward to act like we're still stronger on all counts than any other nation and able to be caretaker of freedom and capitalism and markets. Let's just give it all up now, while WE HAVE THE CHANCE, in light of the deep recession. Is that the thinking? I hope not.

It is too soon for the Earth of Star Trek, with a world-governing council, planetary "credits", etc. Too many ideologues with deep desires to kill innocents for their god or their power. In other words, to keep with the Star Trek theme, Earth has its own Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, who are interested in harming others, despite overtures to Iran and others by Ms. Clinton and friends.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Did Israel strike at Sudan to hit Gaza gun-runners?

BBC NEWS | Africa | Mystery over Sudan 'air strike'

Mystery over Sudan 'air strike'


map of Egypt, Sudan and Sinai

A Sudanese government minister has confirmed reports of an air raid in eastern Sudan earlier this year.

The minister, Mabrook Mubarak Saleem, told an Arabic news channel that many people had been killed in the strike, said to have taken place last month.

Earlier reports suggested that those attacked were on their way to deliver weapons to Hamas fighters in Gaza.

Israeli officials have not commented publicly on reports that their planes may have been involved.

The CBS television network said it had been told by American officials that a strike by Israeli planes in January had succeeded in preventing weapons from Sudan reaching Gaza.

Mr Mabrook Mubarak Saleem said the air raid happened in February and that those killed or injured had been civilians from a number of African countries.

Another Middle East-linked mystery. Sudan, which has deep ties to China that might or might not be the pin that keeps everything from collapsing, is not exactly a place to be counted out of being a spot for gun runners who are working with not only Gazan terrorist or other aggressive groups, but Al-Qaeda and anyone else with cash.

This is after all the nation that has been killing, maiming, raping and keeping in misery countless thousands in the Darfur region. All primarily due to religious, ethnic and cultural intolerance. Their government there is trouble, or the ICC would not have issued an arrest warrant for the state's president, Hassan al-Bashir, in early March 2009.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Abortion 'pride' is encouraged by professional student

Opposing Views: OPINION: It's Time for an Abortion Pride Movement - Jacob Appel

Everybody is proud these days. While “pride” as a collective concept may have originated with the Gay Rights movement of the 1970s, now marchers in the St. Patrick’s Day parade are as likely to sport pins boasting “Proud to be Irish” and my Jewish friends are as proud to be Jewish as my Muslim friends are proud to be Muslim—although I always wonder if they wouldn’t be equally proud if they had been born into the opposite faiths.

...

The anti-abortion movement already has its own pride movement. If one reads about reproductive issues in the conservative media—which I often do—one is bombarded with tales of mothers who have sacrificed personal and professional opportunities to bring fetuses to term.

Because, you know, sex as the right of every horny kid and adult on the planet, with no consequences deserved for the realities of the act, is paramount. There is no reason for facing the consequences of being a loose-legged bimbo, being an oppressively horny and emotionally selfish boyfriend, getting sloppy about birth control, or no reason for taking responsibility for being otherwise stupid. That is not the easiest option, after all. Getting rid of the problem is the solution. No matter what that means. Reminds me of liberal concepts for everything. Insincerity, and personal rights -- those to the level of a vicious selfishness -- above logic, responsibility and everything else.

Oh, I see! Judging from the volumes of degrees Mr. Appel has, this author is a professional student. That must be a nice life.

Out here in the real world we see people ruined by decisions that they think will make the "pain" go away, only to be haunted by it their wholes lives. Pride, indeed.

I guess studying ethics and having a sense of them are two vastly different things, in looking at this guy's thinking. Abortion pride and bestiality acceptable, I've seen all I need to. This guy takes mindless, academic openness to a new high. Or, low.

Somehow, many supporters of abortion rights have been lulled into accepting the rhetoric that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” That may be good language for winning elections, but it does a profound disservice to the millions of women who have abortions in this nation each year. Abortions should be safe and legal. That goes without saying. But rare? Abortions should be as frequent or as infrequent as are unwanted pregnancies.

Furthering being the creepiest "ethicist" I have ever read, he goes to the extraordinary level of proclaiming -- without actually saying it, but effectively admitting -- his deep desire for a utopian world where guilt does not exist. I assume this author figures the whole world thinks as he does, that a baby out of the womb is a baby out of mind:

I dream of the day when women are not afraid to walk the streets with pins reading, “I had an abortion and it was the right decision,” and when station wagons bear bumper-stickers announcing, “Thank me for having an abortion when I wasn’t ready to be a parent.” I admire those individuals who work to ensure a women’s right to choose. But choice is a merely a foundation. Ultimately, women—if they so desire—should feel comfortable expressing public pride in their brave and wise choices.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Nuanced: the new not making any sense

This piece is from 2007, and it is still irrelevant today.

FAIR, thanks to this sidebar and the connected article, is now on my list of "slobbering blogs", but only as a junior member.

Sidebar: Liberals Can’t Cut Talk Radio? - FAIR

Extra! January/February 2007

Sidebar: Liberals Can’t Cut Talk Radio?

By Steve Rendall

[Note: This piece is a sidebar to Rough Road to Liberal Talk Success.]

One talk radio talking point for conservatives and establishment observers alike is that progressive politics don’t “work” on talk radio because they are too nuanced and therefore not reducible to the sort of clear-cut moral terms that get talk radio audiences fired up. Anyone who believes this has never heard the likes of Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Molly Ivins or Michael Eric Dyson (himself a successful local talk radio host in Chicago).

While touring in support of FAIR’s book The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error in the mid-’90s, I was accosted by one talkshow host after another with another conservative talking point: Liberals can’t do talk radio because they’re too humorless to be entertaining.

My response was to ask them why they thought this was true of talk radio, since it was the only entertainment venue where liberals weren’t prominent. They usually accepted my point, but instead of explaining why talk radio was different from other entertainment settings, they would usually begin citing the short list of talk radio liberals who had failed over the years.

They were right in saying that liberal hosts like former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and former California Gov. Jerry Brown were not particularly adept at talk radio. But these and better liberal hosts who’ve been canceled over the years were generally given little time to succeed, assigned poor time slots, or had shows that were wedged in between conservative shows, where it is hard for a liberal to build an audience (and not particularly good for the conservative host who follows the liberal, either). Looking back on the brief and ungenerous tryouts offered to liberal hosts over the years, it’s important to remember that Rush Limbaugh failed at radio for more than a decade before developing his winning formula.—S.R.

Looks like a grand bit of whining, to me, which is of course the primary ingredient in too many liberal arguments about free speech, and other rights that let their opposition have some sway. It is also proclaiming, without proclaiming it outright, that liberals are simply better at everything than conservatives. I presume that this is the case only if they are given the chance to succeed by trouncing the vast right-wing conspiracy to keep them from succeeding on radio. If given that chance -- by the presumed right-wing-only owners of radio stations everywhere -- liberals would be far better at it than conservatives.

Funny, then, that liberal politicians, for instance, must spend twice as much money than conservatives in most elections, whether they win or lose, and even when they lose big. First bit of evidence for that is Obama's victory while spending more than twice as much as McCain (as I recall it) to win by roughly six percent of the vote. Seems to me, that's a recipe for confusion, not expertise.

So the point to the blabbering above is something like this: since Rush struggled for ten years before becoming a widely accepted radio (and even briefly, TV) talker, that liberals, too, can struggle and succeed in radio. But they don't, except a few shining examples. And why? Apparently because, like Steve Rendall, liberal writers are indeed "too nuanced" -- or some less euphemistic term for being scatter-brained. (Translation: liberals are too muddy in use of logic, when it comes down to it, and they would bore an audience without the gross preparation not allowed by two to four hours live on the radio.) Whether I was arguing for the conservative success on radio, or the liberal failure on radio, I would argue that this guy's argument is avoiding reality and pledging for your sypathy for those poor, poor liberals who were not given a chance on radio.

So the point is that there is no point to claiming a conspiracy for right-wing radio success, or to the Fairness Doctrine or something like it since it would change nothing (even by this guy's own words in the article). So what is the point to the argument? I guess it is just too nuanced for me, or it is too propagandist for me to accept.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Treasury Sec fills in reporters on toxic loans plan... aide tries to embargo all that

What stunt is that, then? An embargo was attempted on a chat, which was with reporters in closed quarters, by the Treasury Sec AFTER the chat was finished. Plausible deniability of some sort? Or was it just some dumb bureaucrat trying too hard to shove people around -- not the Sec, but the press aide? Political theater, or just stupidity?

Balance of Power - Geithner Fills In Blanks of Latest Bailout . . . Off Camera - CQ Politics

[Treasury Secretary] Geithner stayed on message and appeared Obamaesque in his cool, confident demeanor. His staff was a bit more antsy, though. As the hour-long briefing concluded, a press aide tried to retroactively put an embargo on the remarks, meaning journos would have to observe a delay before reporting Geithner's comments. Many in the crowd -- a bustantial number of whom had been live-blogging or Twittering -- simply laughed.

"Too late," said one attendee. "It is?" the flustered aide replied.

I guess that's because this current Administration is so attuned to current technology. Unlike Mr. McCain, who if you haven't heard, was not enamored with using keyboards or email (damaged bones from POW torture make it hard to use a PC, perhaps). Or, maybe they are not so aware of current technology. (After all, the Obama Twitter account has not been touched since Jan. 21, 2009, for instance. I guess that cool for a campaigner to attract the young, pliable ones, but not for a Campaigner-in-Chief.)

This, below, is essence of what Treas Sec said, as far as I'm concerned.

Geithner sat at an unadorned conference table in an upstairs conference room with a bottle of mineral water and explained to about 100 reporters how the administration hopes to reinvigorate the financial system without actually taking over any financial institutions. The key is offering private investors low-cost loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve. A fact sheet distributed by Treasury aides showed how a private investor could acquire $100 worth of bad assets by ponying up as little as $6. The government would match that initial investment, and the the FDIC would cover the remaining value.

Geithner predicted a wide array of investors -- including pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and even individual investors -- will flock to the program. He ruled out more dramatic steps, such as turning the government into an owner of the troubled institutions. "We are the United States of America. We are not Sweden," Geithner declared, referring to that country's response to its early 1990s banking crisis.

Well, all my respect to the good people and country of Sweden, but thank God for that piece of real hope from the Obama Administration. I think there is a lot of noise going on, people accusing Obama, across the board, of socialist tendancies. The fact remains that we have, by definition but not governmental model, socialized companies. Gov'ts owning companies equals socialism. That's kinda one huge part of it. That does not mean we are joining Sean Penn's friends in Cuba and Venezuela (but don't tell Penn that, he is liable to punch someone).

They tried to embargo the chat after the fact, so what the heck might that preempt? A bit paranoid, perhaps, to think the "ObamAdmin" might try to eject any words spoken, since they attempted to "post-embargo" the chat, but this is the group that keeps reminding us -- and less offensive from them but Congress tries to claim it, too -- that they inherited this mess.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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